The ring changed everything … or did it? Somewhere under the Misty Mountains, Bilbo Baggins goes from a quivering wet mass of useless baggage to a Burglar. Luck brings him a ring of invisibility, but what did Gollum do with it? Hide in the dark. Bilbo has luck, but he also has courage and wits – or finds them, alone in the dark.And how much does the ring help Bilbo? The wargs and Smaug can smell him out. The ring doesn’t protect him from getting hurt in the Battle of Five Armies. The ring may hide him from the giant spiders, but it was his idea to take off the ring and taunt them in order to save his friends.Yes, the ring helps, and Bilbo is lucky to have it. But without courage and wits, he would not have learned to rely on his luck, even to the point of tempting fate. Bilbo becomes a catalyst, an instrument of fate, a symbol of luck – after all, he was chosen for luck, the fourteenth member.But without courage and wits, all the luck in the world would not have done Bilbo any good. What will we do with our luck?